Cooper abandons takeover bid for Laird

US-based electrical group Cooper Industries has walked away from its two-month quest to acquire its British rival Laird Plc, sending the stock of the London-listed company crashing by 15 per cent.

Houston-based Cooper, which last week raised its cash offer to 200 pence per share, or £533-million ($871 million) - an 8-per cent increase on its last month's offer of 185 pence per share, abandoned the deal after talks broke down on price.

After receiving Cooper's raised offer, Laird rejected the deal and said that it was not willing to open its books until it received an indicative offer of 220 pence a share.

The second time rejection came as a surprise for Cooper since Laird had earlier indicated that it would be open for talks at a price of around 200 pence.

But Laird came out with onerous terms that included Cooper replacing its agenda with Laird's, and replacing the "Due Diligence" term with "Topics for Valuation Discussion."

In a statement to the stock exchange yesterday, Laird said, "Cooper continues to believe that there would be strategic merit in acquiring Laird but is unwilling to proceed at the price at which the board of Laird will engage Cooper or without being able to undertake due diligence."

After rejecting its initial approach last month as being ''opportunistic'', Laird last week claimed to have provided Cooper with ''high-level information'' so that the US group could ''better assess the fundamental value of Laird''. But Cooper rubbished this claim saying that all Laird offered was a one-page ''high-level forecasts, unsupported by any details, commentary or assumptions" and renewed its call to be allowed full access to Laird's books in order to carry out due diligence.